by Phyllida Law
Soph came in and started a personal treasure hunt. She has chosen eight different coloured buttons and is presently cutting off the ones on her pink cardigan to replace them with this rainbow set.
Good grief.
Don’t, whatever you do, put your hands into the water in the sink in the washroom. I’ve got pieces off the stove soaking in a strong solution of Flash. It would play hell with your psoriasis.
I will do the fridge and oven in the morning and clean under the bath. Must get bulk buy of bicarb. I gave Eleanor our last packet for her cystitis so I’ll use the box for your teeth and replace it, if you don’t mind?
I couldn’t get Garibaldi biscuits up at Flax’s and I couldn’t get Min cream. Mrs Venning says it seems to have disappeared off the shelves.
Met Mr Wilson up the hill today and stopped to ask after Mrs Wilson’s wrist. She is doing very well but of course he has to do the shopping for her and it hurts his poor feet. Anyway, we were happily passing the time of day when I noticed he had a little flower petal stuck to his cheek. So, without thinking, I put my hand up and picked it off. My dear, it was only a piece of pink toilet paper he’d stuck on a shaving cut. I was mortified.
Talking of toilet paper, I got much the cheapest buy at the International. Quite pleased with myself, and then I had to pay a fine on the library books. They won’t let you off if you are an OAP. They say they might if there were ‘special circumstances’. They say they are human.
Which reminds me, I’ve had to pay that parking fine after all. Don’t you think that’s MEAN?
Got Garibaldis at the International.
I know what it is, Gran. It’s Boot. She will eat spiders. Every so often she has an overdose and throws up on your bedcovers. It’s all arms and legs. I think she eats daddy-long-legs as well. It’ll be easy to wash out and we can freshen it up outside on the first fine day.
I hoovered under our bed this morning by the way. Found the following: one sock, seven pence, a dod of makeup-covered cotton-wool, two golf tees, one biro and a cardboard box of curtain rings.
Well, I don’t understand it. She seems all right generally, doesn’t she?
When she howls like that I can’t bear it. I’ve put a bundle of old Daily Mails in the broom cupboard so if she starts yelling try to get one under her.
She’s taken all the polish off the parquet in the hall and there is an ugly stain on the tiles under the kitchen table, which I just can’t shift. I dread her throwing up on the carpet. We will never get the smell out. Every time the car gets hot there it is again. The unmistakable Boot pong.
Actually I apologised to Mrs Wilson when I gave her a lift the other day and the smell turned out to be some Charentais melon she had in her shopping bag.
Drops for the last time tomorrow morning. We mustn’t forget to ask the doctor about the form for a disabled badge. He has to sign it.
Appointment 5.20 p.m. We’ll leave on the hour.
Actually, before we leave let’s write down anything you want to ask the doctor. We mustn’t waste our visit. All my symptoms fly out of the window as soon as I’m in the door.
Have you enough ointment?
Have you enough pills?
Are you still worried about your eyes?
Do you need any sweeties?
We can pass the sweet shop as we come home. Mrs Estherson says we won’t get coconut logs any more because the Scottish firm of Ferguson’s in Glasgow has closed down. She says she thinks she can get us Richmond Assorted.
Mother sends love. She says the ferry was off last week because a jellyfish got stuck in the works.
Well done, darling. Thank Heaven that’s over, and I expect you’ll feel the benefit tomorrow. He says there is no infection whatsoever and just a tiny bit of inflammation from the wax. Keep a wee bit of warm cotton-wool in it overnight. He says it won’t affect your aid, and you can go on using it safely. Apparently the wax has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Also, it’s natural for syringing to make you feel dizzy and a bit seedy. And it’s natural to be scared. He wondered if you ought to have a blood test you looked so pale but I knew it was terror. Also I don’t think the water was warm and he was so enthusiastic that he squirted it all over his suit. Serves him right, I say. Never mind, it needed doing. I held the kidney bowl under your ear and it was spectacular. Reminded me we ought to get the chimney swept this year.
While you were recovering there I asked him about deaf-aids and he agreed immediately to an appointment for you at the Royal Free. He says the box models are much easier for elderly people to manage because the controls are larger. It’s just circulation, I think. He thought we could stitch a pocket to your pinny on the bodice somewhere so the box wasn’t under the table when you sat down, but I think that would muffle the microphone. He said he would certainly sign a form for our disabled badge. He doesn’t keep them. You can pick them up at the town hall, he says.
We are getting one! When we get one I can drive you to the doctor’s and we can park in the Finchley Road, which means we won’t have to gallop across the road like that. Those traffic lights don’t give us half enough time to cross, do they? I remember I used to find that with the pram.
Oh, and by the way, he has had a very good wheeze about your pills. You can get the same medicine in liquid form, and he says he has an idea it works quicker. It must take ages for those depth-charges to dissolve in your stomach. No more choking them down or struggling to halve them.
The doctor said those large pills should be easier to swallow but Mother says Uncle Arthur keeps a hammer in his bedroom to smash his into little bits. He has trouble with his oesophagus, though. Not sure I’ve spelt that correctly.
The vet says it’s fur ball. Why should she suddenly get fur ball? I didn’t know ordinary black bring-you-luck type cats ever got fur ball. I thought it was only those fluffy Persian people. In fact, Dad and I paid £3 for a tiny bad-tempered Persian kitten from that pet shop in Parkway when something about the lecture we had on fur ball made us go back for a refund and buy Ms Boot, who was only thirty bob.
Oh, well. Change of life, I suppose. Apparently we have to brush her regularly. She is to be given a dose of liquid paraffin every day for a week, and then once a week as a general rule. Good grief. She seems quite to enjoy the brushing if it’s not too near her old scar but I don’t know how to get her to take the paraffin. I put one lot in her milk and she stepped in it.
I rang the vet and he says to squeeze her jaws at the corner when she will be forced to grin and then someone can fling it down on a teaspoon. Not much success so far. We’ve put the liquid paraffin in the cupboard above the fireplace by the way in case we get into a muddle—tho’, mind you, Mother used to use it for cooking during the war. She made a wonderful orange sponge with it when we were short of fat. Everyone loved it and it was beautifully light and airy so her cousin Joan ordered one for her baby’s christening, and all the baby guests loved it too, with very unfortunate results.
Funny to think of those days. It was 2 oz butter per person per week, wasn’t it? When we were staying at Granny’s Flora, the maid, would put our butter ration on little dishes by our places so as to be strictly fair, but Granny used to steal bits and give it to Major Reddick, an officer who was billeted on her, and whom she adored. Us kids loathed him. He used to take his teeth out before a meal, wrap them in his khaki hanky and keep them in his pocket till he was finished, when he would replace the teeth and dry his hanky before the fire.
Frightful creature. Flora said he wore a corset. Every morning after breakfast he would rise from the table and say, without fail, ‘Let’s see what the King has got for us to do today.’ Mother says he attacked her in the morning room and she told him she would scream for Mama.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ he said. ‘Don’t you like men?’
I think uniforms are bad for people.
Darling, we are all terribly sorry. Truly.
I absolutely promise we were not laughing at
you, and it was all my fault. Well, it was my fault originally but then Dad started making cheeky remarks and we all got hysterical.
What happened was this: everyone was discussing the merits of bran for constipation. Dad said he knew you hadn’t been, but I wasn’t constipated, was I, so why did I take it?
So I said, ‘Piles.’ Well, you know I get piles sometimes, don’t you? They started with Emma. Haven’t had them for ages but I take bran every day in case. It’s quite fashionable.
So then I told them a dreadful story I have never told anyone before.
Last summer, when you and I were visiting Mother, I was suddenly painfully afflicted, and there was no bran in the house. Uncle Arthur won’t tolerate it. Mother has tried to give him All Bran for breakfast but he just sits there with bits sticking out of his mouth like a bad-tempered bird building a nest. So, anyway, I had read somewhere that a very good remedy was to put a clove of garlic up your bum. So I did. For about a week—well, every night for about a week. The trick is to get rid of it in the morning, but on the day we drove back south I didn’t have time to go to the loo properly and the garlic was still up there, if you see what I mean.
Well, we left very early to catch the first ferry and round about the Lake District with no windows open I’m afraid I was forced to fart and the smell was simply frightful. You were very alarmed and thought there was something wrong with the car. I told you we were passing through farmland and it was probably chemical fertiliser.
Of course, when I was telling this disgusting tale, everyone looked at you and fell about. Do you see? I know you thought we were laughing at you, but really we were laughing at me and I somehow couldn’t get you to hear and Dad was being very wicked and making matters worse.
Please forgive me. I hope you believe we would never talk about you to your face and laugh like that. It’s just so impossible when there are a lot of people at table to persuade everyone to talk one at a time and of course your box picks up all the cutlery noise.
It must be horrible for you. I am so sorry. We’d all hate it if you didn’t come down to meals, darling. Please don’t do that.
Mrs Wilson is fine now, but a bit stiff. Mr Wilson drove to Glastonbury last week and brought her back some Holy Water in a petrol can.
She is keen to stick her wrist in that shrine somewhere near Sidmouth. There’s a sort of hole in a bit of stone and you put the injured limb through it and pray to some saint. Saint Monica or somebody, it could be. Anyway, it’s a woman.
Gran, have you seen a set of keys anywhere?
Not this Tuesday, darling. Next Tuesday. Sorry, sorry, sorry. It was Sunday when I said it and I meant not this Tuesday coming but next Tuesday, i.e. the Tuesday in the week following next Sunday. Oh, curses, it’s one of those misunderstandings like the pronunciation of ‘scone’, and whether a crumpet is a big flat dark thing with holes in it or a wee fat white thing with holes in it, or whether treacle is syrup or the other way round or neither. How long were you sitting with your feet in a bowl?
Mother is in a frantic state. You know the stray cat I told you about? Well, not only did it give Uncle Arthur asthma but it started to get some sort of discharge from its ears so she took it to the vet and he advised her to have it put down. He said it would be kinder to do it at once so she left it with him and came home. Now, of course, Ada tells her that the doctor has lost his tabby and is searching the coast. My dear, she may have murdered the doctor’s cat.
Nothing to report.
Dad used some of your psoriasis cream on that rough patch on his shin and it’s gone. Brilliant.
The minister’s wife came home from a late Thursday bulk shopping trip and dropped a bottle of whisky and six eggs while unloading.
No, nobody was hurt. It’s just that whisky costs £6.98.
Hi, Gran! The doorbell will ring between 2 and 2.30 p.m. Don’t be alarmed, it’s only Mr Venning come to change the lock. If you have your nap in the chair in the kitchen after lunch you will hear the bell and no bother. I’ve told Syd he must wait awhile for you to answer so don’t rush to the door whatever you do. Absolutely no need.
I’ve told Gerry just to leave my order on the window-sill, well wrapped against Boot, but she never uses the letter-box now. Not since that day she got stuck. (I remember one holiday in Skye Mother put a Queen of Puddings on the window ledge and a sheep ate the lot!)
Talking of which, lunch is on the stove. Plus lots of rice pudding with a dod of jam (yours).
I shall be home by 4.30 at the very latest, which gives us ample time to get to the doctor at 5 p.m. Your raincoat is on the hallstand. Looks like we’ll need it. The kids will have tea mashed by the time we get back.
So it was Mr Venning who finished the rock-cakes! You’ll have to make more as I’m hoping against hope that the window-cleaner will come next week.
Nice that Syd had some tea. That was a very good move. Mrs Venning told me about the rock-cakes when I was in to get Brillo Clearaway for the bath. She says Syd has a very sweet tooth. He gave her 50p to go to Alexis for a piece of cheesecake and two Bath buns for his lunch. Well, my dear, she only got a small piece of cheesecake for the money. ‘Where are the buns?’ cried Syd.
‘He lives in the past,’ says Mrs V.
She tells me old Mr Samuel’s grocery is opening shortly as a centre for water beds. I ask you. I expect kids will go in and wreck the place with a packet of pins. Mrs V is highly amused.
Syd says the crack above your door is because all the houses are slipping downhill. And, of course, so is the roof, and the plumbing is original. ‘Never mind,’ said Mrs Venning. ‘You’re sitting on a fortune, Mrs T.’
Escott’s are coming to turn the stair carpet on Wednesday week. That’s a week this coming Wednesday. Dad has nailed down that waggly stairrod for safety and they will do it properly when they come. Mr E says we could never do it ourselves and there are three steps which are dangerously threadbare so take care just now.
You will be pleased to hear that I have found bits of carpet in the stair cupboard. How apt. They were behind the boxes of Carnation milk and sugar that Dad bought against famine. Do you remember when things were short in the shops a year or so ago? There was a spate of panic buying. Someone in Japan got crushed to death queuing for toilet rolls, and sugar was rationed for a spell here. Someone punched the manager at Cullen’s.
Wash day again. Time flies. I will do fridge and disgusting oven in the morning. Must get another packet of bicarb.
Sophie has gone out to meet Beattie and was so late leaving she asked me to tell you she was sorry not to see you.
I was rather relieved. On her top half she was wearing a T-shirt in blotchy eau-de-nil and her denim pea jacket with the badges. Bottom half was sandals and a white cotton petticoat. She looked as if something frightful had happened when she was half dressed and she’d dropped everything and rushed out. I told her she might be a bit chilly from the waist down and she said she got an A in Art.
She has left three gnawed spare ribs on the kitchen table, which she had put in her bag at the restaurant last night to give to somebody’s dog. I don’t know whose dog. They weren’t even her spare ribs.
Herewith:
bottle of Gee’s Linctus
some Shield tablets
wine gums
Bourbon biscuits
Of course you can’t hear anything—you’ve got cotton-wool in your ears.
Bit worried about Boot. Does she still meet you in the morning as usual? That strange third eyelid seems to be a bit stuck on her left eye.
Eleanor is much better. She rang me today. She is consumed with guilt about Mother’s birthday. She sent a letter, and a parcel was to follow but her local PO was broken into the afternoon of the day she posted it. Men with guns. And it’s a tiny place, she says. The sort that keeps dog biscuits in the window. The owner has shut up for a few days to recover. Eleanor says he looks awfully ill. Meanwhile the parcel is either still sitting there and the gunmen have got away with
lavender talcum powder, some after-dinner mints and a tin of truffles.
I’ve found the keys. They were in the bottom of my wardrobe. Can you beat it? I had to sit down for a minute. What I think must have happened is that I hung up my cleaning holding the bunch of keys and let them go as all the hangers were put in place. Of course, the bottom of our wardrobe is full of shoes and scarves and old plastic bags and aprons so I didn’t hear them fall. I might never have found them. But they’re no use now and X pounds down the drain.
I am a dizzy tart. It runs in the family. Mother lost a pair of tights she’d bought in Dunoon and rang the shop fussing and furious only to find them in the fridge. There was one wet winter when she put her shoes to dry in the bottom oven of the Rayburn and forgot for weeks. Dinky little stone shoes they were.
No, I won’t tell you how much. Put your pension to better use.
No, darling, I don’t think there is any question of your having a cataract. I think that some of those library books have very small print, and the doctor feels the mistiness is to do with your general health, but we’ll check at the op-thingummy.
You can see a cataract. My granny’s was very noticeable.
I don’t know why Aunt Min can’t get hers done. Perhaps it’s because of her diabetes? It’s as simple nowadays as a tonsillectomy but I remember Granny’s was a grand affair when you lay bandaged in a darkened room for ages. Of course, Granny refused. She got up immediately and wandered about the ward in her flannel nightie removing everyone’s bandages as well as her own. In the end they sent her home for bad behaviour. Mother always says she got into an old gentleman’s bed, but I don’t think the old gentleman was there at the time.
We had to ban Granny as a subject of conversation because she was so appalling everyone wanted to know about her latest iniquity and other concerns were elbowed.